Draught beer is often preferred by consumers to bottled or canned beer. Draught beer is generally served at the counter of a public house out of a refrigerated keg provided with a fluid connection to a source of pressurized gas for driving the dispensing of the beer through a dispensing line fluidly connecting the keg to a dispensing tap, comprising a valve for controlling the flow out of said tap. Full size dispensing units fixed to the counter of public houses are rather expensive and are generally financed by brewing companies. Furthermore, since they are encased in the counter, they cannot be moved. For example, in case of a temporary social event outside a public house, such as an outdoor event, wedding party, fair and the like, consumers would like to be offered draught beer for consumption. Besides the consumers' preference for draught beer, above a critical volume of consumption, serving bottled or canned beer would be too expensive and would generate too much waste. For these reasons, compact and mobile beverage dispensing units, offering the same quality of beer as a draught beer served at the counter of a public house, were developed and brought to the market. They are designed to accommodate a keg or container containing the beer, with a source of pressurized gas, such as a pressure gas bottle or a compressor. The containers used can be traditional metal kegs as used in public houses, possibly but not necessarily of smaller dimensions, or can include so called bag-in-containers as disclosed e.g., in EP 2146832, EP 2148770, EP 2148771, EP 21 52494 and the like.
For example, US 2004/0226967 proposes a roving dispensing unit comprising a cooling chamber suitable for accommodating and cooling a beer keg, a hollow column supported on said cooling chamber and a dispensing head comprising a tap valve. A source of pressurized gas, such as a compressor or a CO2 cartridge is provided for ensuring the necessary pressure for driving the beer flow out of the keg. A dispensing tube fluidly connects the keg to the tap valve. For reasons of hygiene, the dispensing tube is disposable and must be changed with each new keg. In one embodiment, the dispensing line is even permanently coupled to the keg to ensure that it will not be used a second time. Upon use, a new keg can be installed into the cooling chamber, and fluidly connected to a source of pressurized gas, generally located in the same chamber. The dispensing line is either permanently coupled to the keg or must be coupled thereto, before it is run through a channel defined in the hollow column until the dispensing tube outlet reaches the dispensing head of the column and is engaged into the tap valve mechanism. This “bottom-up” insertion system, wherein the dispensing tube is installed starting from the keg (located at the bottom) all the way up to the dispensing head (located at the top) requires that the dispensing line be provided with a shut-off valve to prevent the flow of beer out of the keg before the dispensing line is in place in the tap valve. It is clear that providing a shut-off valve to a disposable tube increases substantially the cost of use of the system. Furthermore, it can be quite cumbersome to drive up a flexible dispensing line through the hollow column which outlet to the cooling chamber is positioned at the back thereof as can easily be appreciated when looking e.g., at FIG. 2 of US 2004/0226967.
In order to facilitate the engagement of the dispensing tube into the tap valve, a rather critical operation which is difficult to control from the interior of the cooling chamber, WO 2009/115928 suggests to allow the opening of the dispensing head so that the dispensing tube outlet emerging from the opening at the top of the column can be handled from outside the cooling chamber and engaged more comfortably into the tap valve mechanism.
EP 1982952 extends the idea of allowing the opening of the column to the entire length thereof. This solution greatly simplifies the “bottom-up” installation of the dispensing tube since it needs only be passed from the interior to the exterior of the cooling chamber through a short channel crossing the top board of the cooling chamber before it can be handled from outside the cooling chamber, instead of having to drive it from the inside of the cooling chamber all the way up to the dispensing head.
Although the foregoing dispensing units are mobile, they still are rather cumbersome and quite expensive. The present invention proposes a compact, versatile, and economical dispensing unit that can fit almost anywhere and which is very simple to use and to connect to a dispensing keg.